At the edge of tweaking

Menu

How to disable ads in Skype’s chat window

Previously, we covered a trick which gets rid of Skype ads by modifying the language file. Unfortunately, this method stopped working in newer versions of Skype. Another annoyance in newer versions of Skype is that banner ads are shown right in the chat window. Today, we would like to share another simple method to disable ads in Skype's chat window which works regardless of the version of Windows you have.

About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Works! But now when I press the “home” button, I get a page asking me to search address book to find contacts. Before it was a page that updated with my contacts’ statuses. Anyway to get back to the old one?

Pretty well done!, works, only the “Home”-Page doesn’t anymore show the latest status-messages, there is only a “add friends via fb” Button -I actually liked that function, we’ll se if I’ll leave it like this (:

Thanks a lot for this information. For me the ads were not only annoying but made Skype almost unusable over a slow remote desktop connection. The ad graphics would bog down the whole connection. Now chatting is almost as responsive as sitting in front of my computer.

On my primary skype account that has been active since around 2007-2008, even with the latest version I don’t get ads across the top wherever I login, without any host file edits or anything (I assume it’s the account age), and came here looking for howto disable the ad in the bottom left, and that solution was in the comments :)

I am sure Skype is making lots of cash for Microsoft. So to see that a windows security feature is able to allow users to purposely disable the cash-flow from Skype is absolutely amazingly stupid for Microsoft not to have thought of that :)

Hi Sergey :) Thought I’d share this with you, it’s basically the same thing but made into a .reg file so you can just apply it and boom, done, handy for easy deployment or even to make an app based on these values Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

do the steps listed here but then do the following as well and it works Im on the lastest version of skype right now and no ads and no ads placement window with nothing in them http://community.skype.com/t5/Windows-desktop-client/Tutorial-How-to-disable-Skype-advertisements/m-p/3829240/highlight/true#M326807

I’ve written a tool that automatically removes the entire Skype advertising. www.mediafire.com/download/3s1903x5vc0cfvn/Skype_Werbung_weg.exe .Therefore you have to enter your username, because the settings are at %AppData%\Skype and then in a folder with the Skype name. But it will not be given to me or third,this shows the fact, that it easily works without Internet.The Tool is Written in German, because I´am from Germany. If you can read in it “Bitte Skype Kontonamen (der nicht aenderbare) eingeben.(Klicke in Skype auf deinen Namen [Oben links]und dann siehst du ihn oben recht unter “Konten”):” It means, that you have to enter your Skype Account name. You can find it, in Skype with an click to your username (at the top right corner) and than you can see it under “Accounts” (At the top right) Tipp: if you have linked with Microsoft, it´s not your Microsoft email Address.If you are interested: This tool is a packed batch with an extra tool to easily add things to hosts file. You can simply unpack with WinRar or 7Zip for example and in the batch I still have some notes for operation made. Is recognized scanners at VirusTotal of about 3 of 50 viruses, because it´s changing the hosts file…The Notes in the Batch script are also in German.Hopefully you could understand my bad English.

I am French and my English is very poor, so I make an effort to give you my experience with Windows 10 64bit enabled home thanks to the free update.

I used the second method proposed to modify the Host file; (For me, I just copied into a new text file on my desk the contents of my Host file and added it appropriate line)

I then saved the file in .txt file and host have simply copy with administrator rights in c: \ windows \ system32 \ drivers \ etc \ (accept replacing the original file with the new course)

Without restart, I opened Sype latest version (7.8.0.102 version) and was able to see immediately pleased pubs had disappeared.

Works well with your list provided on top Sergey Tkachenko. I want to congratulate you on your work and especially touttes tips you put gracefully at our disposal (as well as congratulate also all your friends to help you by providing you with them also their valuable contribution to your work)

You seem to have good ideas – eg this adblock thing works. Now, it’s nice, but my issue wasn’t really the ads themselves, rather their placement.

I’m wondering if you know of a way to force them to remain in the chat window as a “top banner” or “side banner”?

My biggest issue is that as soon as I make the chat window wider (to see long lines in the chat on one line) it puts the banner frame to the side, and as I keep enlarging the window (sideways) it has the audacity to enlarge the ad frame as well. It’s friggen annoying. :)

Thanks!

p.s. Microsoft can’t get a single thing right it seems, when it comes to user-friendliness.